Christ's Friends and Ours

Second Sunday of Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  One of the great blessings of friendship consists in having someone who can urge you on when you’re being a wimp, or console you when things are legitimately difficult.  Sometimes, on our own, we don’t recognize how much we can do, until someone pushes us beyond our comfort zone.  Sometimes, on our own, we don’t realize that we don’t have to carry a burden alone; others stand by to assist us.  

    As we hear the familiar Gospel account of the Transfiguration, the Gospel we always hear on the second Sunday of Lent, I want to focus this year on the two people our Lord has beside him on Mount Tabor.  While Christ is sui generis, a unique individual because He is both God and Man, Moses and Elijah certainly assist Christ with their witness as Christ prepares for His impending Passion.  I’m not saying that Christ needed Moses and Elijah to learn something, because as God Christ had access to every piece of knowledge and bit of wisdom that He needed.  But still, it helps to have friends to urge you on towards that which is difficult.
    When we look at Moses, we see someone who carries the entire Chosen People in their exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery to freedom.  Moses’ experience shows that, while the goal is good, people don’t always move towards what is in their best interest, and do not always trust in God.  From the very beginning, as Moses tells Pharaoh to let God’s people go, the people grumble against Moses because the change isn’t happening quick enough or easy enough.  Even after they leave Egypt because God had struck down the firstborn, they still doubt God’s ability to save them as they come to the banks of the Red Sea with the Egyptians pursuing them behind.  And even after God saves them through the waters of the Red Sea, and destroys the Egyptian army by the same waters, the Chosen People still doubt that God will provide food and water for them.  As much as Moses shows the people God’s fidelity, they still doubt.  And Moses ends up interceding for the people numerous times as God threatens to start over just with Moses.  
    When we look at Elijah, we see a prophet zealous for the Lord who works mighty deeds.  And yet, the political leadership, King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel, still promote foreign deities for the Chosen People to worship.  We think of the great religious showdown on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al, the pagan god.  While the prophets of Ba’al fail to get the pagan deity to consume their sacrifice, Elijah pours water on his sacrifice, but fire from heaven still consumes the sacrifice and evaporates the water around the altar that Elijah had built.  Elijah then destroys the foreign prophets, but has to flee because the monarchs seek Elijah to kill him.  Elijah runs first to a broom tree and hides there, but an angel encourages him to eat so that he has enough strength for the mission.  Elijah then goes to Mount Horeb, and experiences God, not in the powerful phenomena of thunder or earthquake or fire, but in the silence of a whisper.  He feels alone, since he was the last remaining prophet of the true God at the time.  
    Christ has similarities in His mission to Moses and Elijah.  Like Moses, Christ carries the entire people, not just the Jews, who trust when they see amazing signs and miracles, but then doubt shortly after the miracles come to an end.  Christ is the one Mediator between God and men, whose blood saves not just the firstborn, but all those born of water and the Spirit through Holy Baptism.  He takes death upon Himself, in order that God’s justice against sin might be satisfied.  Like Elijah, Christ is also zealous for the Lord, and puts to death not the false prophets, but the false gods themselves, the kingdom of Satan and his minions.  Still, as the only-Begotten Son of God, He, like Elijah, stands alone as the local political leaders, like King Herod and the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, will seek to put the Lord to death, like King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel before them sought Elijah.  
    So who are our friends who push us on and console us with their experience?  Who are our Moses and Elijah?  In one sense, we can look towards good friends we have who can push us onwards despite our trials and tribulations.  These are the true friends who see the virtue we want, who see how much we might have to struggle for that virtue, but don’t let us give up on ourselves.  Or they might be the friends who see the pain and the suffering we endure, and help us to know that we’re not alone, and that others do truly care for us.  We may not have many friends like this, but even just one or two can make all the difference in the world.
    But, also important to consider are our friends who are saints.  Maybe it’s the saints from the Scriptures, who stories remind us of how God works with those who struggle for righteousness, and how God consoles those who struggle through difficult times, saints like Moses, Elijah, Job, the Apostles, the Holy Women, and others.  If we read Scripture regularly we can understand more adeptly how God works and how we can make it through difficult times.  But we also have the saints who have come after the Death and Resurrection of Jesus who help us by their example and their intercession.  When we’re struggling, do we pray to our patron saints like our name saint, our Confirmation saint, or a saint associated with our vocation or profession?  When we’re sad and feel the weight of the world, do we turn to our Blessed Mother or other saints whose lives inspire us to persevere in the midst of difficulties and struggles?  
    God made us for communion: with Him and with others.  God Himself said about Adam that it was not good to be alone.  Especially during Lent, but even during the entire year, may we rely on good friends, both those on earth and those in heaven, who will push on on when the times get tough, and comfort us when we feel down and out.  May we recognize that we are not alone, but that myriad of witnesses surround us, encouraging us towards the heavenly homeland to which we hope to return.  [Where Christ reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.].

The Old Man and the New Man

Second Sunday of Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Not long before Toby Keith died, a little more than a year ago, I heard a song that he released in 2019 called, “Don’t Let the Old Man In.”  While the song sings of death, personified by an old man, for us Catholics, the old man is Adam, our fallen, sinful self, while the new man is Christ, raised from the dead and sinless.
    And as we hear the readings today, we get the comparison between the old man and the new man.  St. Paul lays out one of the sins that is part and parcel of the old man: lust and fornication.  St. Thomas Aquinas defines lust as seeking sexual pleasure not in accord with reason.  And fornication, in its simplest form, is sexual relations between an unmarried man and unmarried woman, though more broadly it can refer to adultery (where at least one person is married) and other sexual sins.
    There is no doubt that the sexual passions are strong.  The old joke is told of a man asking a priest when he would no longer have to worry about lust.  The priest answered, “Five minutes after you’re dead.”  Our bodies, when they are not subjected to the soul, tend towards their own desires.  Especially in youth, they operate as if the propagation of the human race depended entirely upon one’s self.  And while one can have a legitimate desire to seek sexual pleasure that is in accord with reason (indeed, the gift of sexuality is a great gift from God), the old man, whose body, mind, and soul are not ordered properly and subjected in obedience to God, seeks simply to satisfy those desires whenever and however he wants.  
    And this is true even beyond lust and sexual desire.  The old man, the disobedient Adam, always seeks his own will over and against God’s will, no matter what the subject matter.  The old man spends money as he wants, without any reference to God; eats whatever he wants, without any reference to God; pursues whatever he wants, without any reference to God.  In all these cases and more, God is, at best, an afterthought, and, at worst, not considered at all in one’s actions.  The old man, St. Paul says, is earthly, and was addressed on Ash Wednesday: Remember, man, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  

    But the Gospel we heard today, the Gospel of the Transfiguration, shows us what the new man can be.  Christ receives transfiguration from the Father to show the three great Apostles what will happen after the Passion and Crucifixion.  But that foresight connects to obedience, obedience to the Father’s will, no matter where that leads, even if it leads to the cross.  Moses, who appears on Mount Tabor with the Lord and Elijah, also received a much smaller gift of transfiguration when he beheld God.  His face radiated, so much so that people would have him cover it up because they were put off by it.  Moses would only remove his veil when he entered the presence of God.  But, St. Paul also says that it was a radiance that faded.  Whereas the radiance God desires for us in heaven will never fade away, just as the radiance of Christ never fades away.
    That radiance comes when we stop living like the old man, doing it “my way,” and when we, by the grace of God, open ourselves up to God’s transforming grace, His life, so that it begins to change us from the inside out.  We start to transfigure when we do it God’s way.  Sin blocks the light of Christ that we received at Holy Baptism from shining through us.  Repentance, especially through the Sacrament of Penance, cleanses us from the mud of sin so that the light of Christ can shine through us and glorify God.
    As far as our sexual passions go, living the life of the new man means treating our gift of sexuality as the precious gift it is, rather than simply a physical relief from stress or loneliness.  Since we live in a GM city, the image of the gift of sexuality I use is like a new corvette.  Most would care for it, protect it from misuse, and make sure no one is eating or drinking in or around the car.  Misusing it would be to take it on two-track roads in a forest, or let kids eat ice cream in the back seat, or drive it through bogs.  When we view things we shouldn’t, or try to simulate the sexual act on our own, or engage in acts of affection which are proper to marriage, or even engage in sexual acts as spouses that are not open to life (and I’m not talking about NFP, which cooperates with how God has made the human body to achieve or delay conception), we run our corvette through the mud.  The more we put ourselves into temptation regarding our sexual faculties, the harder it is to get out of the mud.  So we want to make sure that we are not allowing our sexual desires get the better of us as much as we can.
    But, as I said, living a transfigured life isn’t only about sex.  It’s also about being kind to a co-worker who puts us down; or being a friend to someone who is friendless, even if they are a little off; or not seeking undue attention and puffing ourselves up by bragging about our achievements; or treating even our enemies with human dignity and respect.  Living the life of the new man is about asking what God wants us to do in this moment.  And the more we practice it, the easier it becomes.  As we think about the saints, for many of them towards the end of their life, living a Christ-centered life didn’t require as much effort, because they had trained themselves to think with the mind of Christ and love with His Sacred Heart.  
    We don’t have to live like the old man.  We don’t have to fall to our passions and let them rule us.  That is the precious gift we were given in baptism.  So, to quote the last verse of Toby Keith’s song: “When he rides up on his horse / And you feel that cold bitter wind / Look out your window and smile / Don’t let the old man in.”  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Don't Let the Old Man In

Second Sunday of Lent

    Not long before Toby Keith died, a little more than a year ago, I heard a song that he released in 2019 called, “Don’t Let the Old Man In.”  While the song sings of death, personified by an old man, for us Catholics, the old man is Adam, our fallen, sinful self, while the new man is Christ, raised from the dead and sinless.
    And as we hear the readings today, we get the comparison between the old man and the new man.  St. Paul speaks about those whose “minds are occupied with earthly things.”  These are people to follow their passions, whatever they might be.  They live more like animals than humans.  And because they do not live up to their human potential, they become “enemies of the cross of Christ,” tending towards destruction by following whatever desires they may have.  This is the description of the old man, the first Adam, who gave up happiness with God out of pride and gluttony.
    The old man, the disobedient Adam, always seeks his own will over and against God’s will, no matter what the subject matter.  The old man spends money as he wants, without any reference to God; eats whatever he wants, without any reference to God; pursues whatever he wants, without any reference to God.  In all these cases and more, God is, at best, an afterthought, and, at worst, not considered at all in one’s actions.  The old man, St. Paul says, is earthly, and was addressed on Ash Wednesday: Remember, man, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  

    But the Gospel we heard today, the Gospel of the Transfiguration, shows us what the new man can be.  Christ receives transfiguration from the Father to show the three great Apostles what will happen after the Passion and Crucifixion.  But that foresight connects to obedience, obedience to the Father’s will, no matter where that leads, even if it leads to the cross.  Moses, who appears on Mount Tabor with the Lord and Elijah, also received a much smaller gift of transfiguration when he beheld God.  His face radiated, so much so that people would have him cover it up because they were put off by it.  Moses would only remove his veil when he entered the presence of God.  But, St. Paul also says that it was a radiance that faded.  Whereas the radiance God desires for us in heaven will never fade away, just as the radiance of Christ never fades away.
    That radiance comes when we stop living like the old man, doing it “my way,” and when we, by the grace of God, open ourselves up to God’s transforming grace, His life, so that it begins to change us from the inside out.  We start to transfigure when we do it God’s way.  Sin blocks the light of Christ that we received at Holy Baptism from shining through us.  Repentance, especially through the Sacrament of Penance, cleanses us from the mud of sin so that the light of Christ can shine through us and glorify God.
    St. Paul mentions those who treat their stomach as a god, who follow their appetite at all costs.  During Lent we often hear critiques about fasting and abstinence.  People will say that they like fish, or that going to Red Lobster hardly seems like a penance.  But part of the abstinence and fasting is that we humble ourselves in observing obedience to a church law.  I read an article recently about whether one could eat an Impossible burger on Fridays during Lent, since it’s not meat.  The response was that, if one is simply trying to find a loophole to not eating meat, then it would probably not be ok to do.  But, if one truly saw eating the Impossible burger as a penance, then it could be ok, since it is not meat.  And, for those who feel it’s easy not to eat meat on Fridays, do it throughout the year.  Because of my fallen will, the times I want meat the most are the times I’m not allowed or supposed to have it.  Or try following the Ember Days, which are four times a year of additional abstinence and fasting.  The old man will probably start rearing his head and crying out for attention, trying to pull us away from penances that we want to do to bring us closer to God.
    We demonstrate the transfigured life of the new man when we display kindness to a co-worker who puts us down; or when we show friendship to someone who is friendless; or when we do not seek undue attention and puff ourselves up by bragging about our achievements; or when we treat even our enemies with human dignity and respect.  Living the life of the new man is about asking what God wants us to do in this moment.  And the more we practice it, the easier it becomes.  As we think about the saints, for many of them towards the end of their life, living a Christ-centered life didn’t require as much effort, because they had trained themselves to think with the mind of Christ and love with His Sacred Heart.  
    We don’t have to live like the old man.  We don’t have to fall to our passions and let them rule us.  That is the precious gift we were given in baptism.  So, to quote the last verse of Toby Keith’s song: “When he rides up on his horse / And you feel that cold bitter wind / Look out your window and smile / Don’t let the old man in.” 

More Than Rules

Second Sunday of Lent
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  The Church Fathers have consistently taught that the Gospel we heard today, that of the Transfiguration, allowed Christ to assuage the distress of the announcement of His Passion, so that the Apostles could know that, after the Passion, the glory of the Resurrection would follow. 

    The Transfiguration also demonstrates what Christ desires to happen to us if He joins us to Himself through Holy Baptism.  The glorification of the head also means the glorification of the body.  God does not keep His glory to Himself, but shares it with those whom Holy Baptism joins to Himself and those who, through a holy life, keep that union strong. 
    And during our Lenten observances, as we discipline ourselves and “waste away” from fasting and abstaining, it is good to keep our eyes on the prize and realize for what God made us.  Because God did not solely destine us for this earth and all of its fallenness.  God made us so that we could live with Him eternally in heaven, and the glory that He has by nature He would share with us by grace.  We, too, are meant to be transfigured.
    So often Catholicism is simply presented as rules to follow.  St. Paul today tells us not to give in to fornication and not to give in to lust, as do the pagans.  And in this way, St. Paul tells us, God will make us holy.  Certainly, many people think about the Church’s teaching on sex as “don’t do [fill in the blank].” 
    But the Gospel reminds us that Catholicism is not, at its heart, about rules.  Catholicism is about letting God transfigure us to be more like Himself, which is how He made us.  Rules can often seem very external, but God desires that His grace not only affect our actions, the externals, but also affect our entire being, both externals and internals.  The chief complaint from the Lord about the Pharisees was that they only cared about the externals, so He calls them cups where only the outside is washed, while the inside remains dirty, or white-washed sepulchers, finely decorated on the outside, but full of death on the inside.  The catch-word for Lent, repent, comes from the Greek 𝜇𝜀𝜏𝛼𝜈𝜊𝜀𝜄𝜏𝜀, meaning a change of mind or a change of being. 
    And as we hear St. Peter say that it is good that they are at Mt. Tabor, and should stay there in three tents, even he, in a sense, thinks only about the externals.  Christ allows His divinity to shine through, and Peter is awe-filled.  But it doesn’t require any change of his own life.  He can simply watch the Lord and bask in His brilliance.  But a disciple is not just about “me and Jesus,” to use a common Christian phrase.  Following the Lord means that we allow God to transform our life, which pushes us out to share that new life with others.  When we conform our lives to God, we conform them to love, which is diffusive; it wants to be shared with others, not kept to ourselves. 
    This transformation cannot only be on the outside.  St. Paul, elsewhere, talks about the glory of the law, which pales in comparison to the glory of righteousness.  Moses, the Apostle writes, had this glory, but the glory faded, which is why Moses covered his face: so the Israelites didn’t see the slow fade of the glory.  The Law had some transfiguring effect, but not a total transfiguration.  Moses could give the law, but grace and truth came through Christ, as we hear in St. John’s prologue at each Mass. 
    It is all too easy to “do the right things.”  It is easier to simply do the external things that we are told that we need to do than to allow those things that we are supposed to do change us, both outside and inside.  But the point of the externals is to change the internals.  God does not only want us to look good, He wants us to be good.  And so those things that we do should change our interior dispositions to be more like Christ.
    So as we engage in our Lenten disciplines, ask yourselves: is this discipline opening me up to the grace of God so that I can be transformed?  Or is it only an outward action that does nothing to my interior spiritual life?  And if we’re not being transformed, it’s not that we stop our penances.  We can’t simply eat meat on Fridays because we don’t experience how abstaining from meat on Fridays transforms us to be more like Christ.  What it does mean is that we have to examine how that practice, or any others that we undertake, can make us more receptive to God’s grace.  Maybe by not eating meat by choice, I ponder those who cannot choose what they want to eat because they have no money.  My heart grows in love for the poor, and I am led to consider how I can help them according to my own state in life.  I no longer see them as “others” who annoy me, but as beloved of Christ, and even Christ Himself, as He says in Matthew 25, for whom I have a responsibility to care. 
    I know I preached about externals and internals on Ash Wednesday, but the Gospel of the Transfiguration reminds us that Christ did not come only to change religious practices.  Christ came to make us more like God, not on our own terms, like what Adam and Eve tried to do when they disobeyed God, but on God’s terms, with a transformation that shines more brightly.  May our Lenten practices not only discipline our bodies, but also help us to be more like Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Eyewitnesses

Feast of the Transfiguration
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  I will admit that I haven’t really been into baseball all that much for a while.  It probably tracks with how good the Tigers have been (or, rather, how bad they’ve been for so long).  But I do know that one of the much-disputed changes in baseball has been the use of replay.  For those of you who watch baseball, perhaps you’ll tell me that it’s not as controversial now as it was when it was instituted.  And I’m sure it’s popularity varies between when it overturns a call that we like, versus when it overturns a call that we don’t like. 
    It is interesting to note how long baseball relied simply on the eyes of the umpires.  And especially when it comes to major league games, sometimes the separation between a ball hitting a mitt and a shoe touching the bag was infinitesimal.  But it was the way we did things in baseball.
    I bring this up, because when it comes to our faith, we often go back to the old cliché, “you just have to believe it.”  Sometimes this is a fine answer, and especially when it comes to teachings that are beyond our reason.  But what we believe, though it may sometimes be beyond reason, is not unreasonable.  In fact, it’s very reasonable to believe what we believe.
    And that’s the point that St. Peter is trying to make in the second reading/epistle: “We did not follow cleverly devised myths…but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”  St. Peter is, of course, talking about what we celebrate today, the Transfiguration of the Lord.  Christ didn’t simply walk up Mount Tabor by Himself, then come down and say, “You’ll never guessed what happened to me!  My clothes because dazzling white, and then Moses and Elijah appeared, and then God the Father’s voice was heard, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’” 

    No, three Apostles witnessed the Transfiguration.  Not even just one witness; three.  Peter, James, and John.  Deuteronomy 19:15 states: “One witness alone shall not stand against someone in regard to any crime or any offense that may have been committed; a charge shall stand only on the testimony of two or three witnesses.”  One could perhaps doubt if only St. Peter had been there, or only St. John, or only St. James.  But if their testimony could support charging someone with a crime, some of which were punishable by death, certainly their testimony could also be believed when it came to testifying to the glorification of the Lord, as well as the presence of Moses and Elijah.
    Speaking of which, the presence of Moses and Elijah also strengthen the case that Christ is who He says He is.  By their presence with the Lord on Mount Tabor, they were witnessing to His divine identity.  And not just Moses and Elijah, but also those whom they represented, that is, the Law and the Prophets, a shorthand way of saying the entire Old Testament.
    But back to the Apostles.  They may have been afraid.  They may have been a bit confused.  But they know what they saw.  And after the Son of Man was raised from the dead, they told the vision to those who would listen.  And if three people tell me the same thing, at least in the broad strokes of the story, I am very likely to believe it, because it is backed up by others.
    While the Transfiguration was only seen by three, the Resurrection was seen by the Eleven, by St. Matthias, by St. Paul, and by other disciples in the 40 days the Lord remained on earth.  And they shared what they had seen and heard.  Not a ghost; not an apparition; but the real Lord, with the marks of His crucifixion, but also eating fish.  These witnesses testified to what they saw, and that testimony was shared down to the present day.
    We, too, are called to be witnesses of what we have seen.  In some cases, that means our own personal experiences of God in our life.  St. Peter tells us elsewhere that we should always be ready to give the reason for our hope to anyone who asks.  Do we know why we have hope?  Do we know the Lord?  We should be ready to tell others about what God has done in our lives, whether a miracle, or even simply the times when we have felt his presence and the effects of His grace, love, and truth in our lives.
    But we can and should also appeal to those first witnesses.  They saw the Lord risen from the dead, in His glorified body.  And then told the next generation of disciples, and they told the next generation of disciples, all the way down to us some 2,000 years later.  And they were very careful about keeping the story straight, and not letting in unnecessary or factually wrong details.  This wasn’t simply about whether George Washington every chopped down a tree, and told his father the truth about it.  This was about salvation, about heaven or hell.  And so the teachings have been kept throughout the millennia. 
    Our task as disciples is to get others to listen to the “beloved Son” of the Father.  Christ desires glory for us.  He wants us to be in heaven with Him, because that is why God created us: to know, love, and serve Him in this life so to be with Him in the next, as the Baltimore Catechism states.  We, too, are supposed to have a glorified body like Christ revealed at the Transfiguration.  But that only happens if we listen to Him.  It only happens if we conform our lives to Him.  And that transformation of life can only occur by God’s grace. 
    Our faith is not unreasonable.  Our faith is not based on “cleverly devised myths,” or stories that have no basis in reality.  Others have seen, and have testified both by their words and even by the shedding of their blood to the truth that Christ gave them.  May we listen to those who have gone before us, and speak to those who come after us, the good news of salvation in Christ[, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever].   

Getting to Know Christ through the Lenten Gospels

Second Sunday of Lent
    Throughout Lent, we see overarching themes as we enter into this holy season.  Certainly we see mortification and the denial of the body as a way to focus on the higher, spiritual realities.  We are also, certainly, meditating on the Passion of our Lord, and preparing for His ultimate sacrifice which we celebrate during the Sacred Triduum.  And that Passion leads to the Resurrection, as we see in the Transfiguration today.  Our Lord had told the Apostles about His impending Passion, and then He takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up Mount Tabor, and is transfigured before them, to show that what would happen after He suffered crucifixion. 

Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

    

    But all of the Gospels passages for this sacred time, both in the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, also help us to understand who Jesus is.  The first two Sundays of Lent find the Gospel readings in both forms of the Roman Rite the same: the temptation of our Lord, and His Transfiguration.  After that, the Gospel selections take different paths.  In the Ordinary Form, since this is Year A in the Cycle of Sunday readings, we hear the long Gospels about the Samaritan woman at the well (3rd Sunday of Lent); the man born blind (4th Sunday of Lent); and the raising of Lazarus (5th Sunday of Lent).  In the Extraordinary Form, where we hear the same readings each year, the passages are: the casting out of demons, and the accusation that our Lord does so by the power of demons (3rd Sunday in Lent); the multiplication of the loaves from John 6 (4th Sunday in Lent); and our Lord telling the Pharisees that He is greater than Abraham (Passion Sunday).  No matter which Form of Mass we attend, the readings help us to know our Lord better as He reveals Himself.
    The identity of Christ is no small matter and is perfect for meditation during Lent.  The better we know Christ, we better know our salvation.  And, since we are members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, the better we know Christ, the better we understand what is in store for us if we stay faithful to Him.
    On the one hand we can talk about who our Lord is objectively, as in facts about Him.  The Gospels show us that He is the Son of God, who has been tempted like us, but has not sinned (first Sunday of Lent).  He is also co-equal with the Father, and sharing in His glory, the God to whom all the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) point (second Sunday of Lent).  The Savior is the one who brings down the power and reign of Satan (third Sunday of Lent, EF), and does so by convicting us of sin so that we can be healed and receive the waters of Divine Mercy (third Sunday of Lent, OF).  Christ opens our eyes to recognize who He is (fourth Sunday of Lent, OF), and feeds us with miraculous bread, going beyond what any other prophet had done (fourth Sunday of Lent, EF).  Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, who grants eternal life to those who believe in Him (fifth Sunday of Lent), whose day Abraham rejoiced to see (Passion Sunday). 
    But knowing our Lord is more than simply knowing facts about Him.  Knowing Christ means taking all those facts that I just laid out, the facts that we hear from the Gospel, and making a choice about who He is to me.  Even the demons knew facts about Christ, and could probably confess more Trinitarian theology than any of us could.  But they do not have a relationship with Christ; they do not want Him involved in their lives; they do not love Him.
    Following Christ as a disciple means growing in our love of Him.  Lent offers us the opportunity to recommit ourselves to acting like He did in our daily lives.  Do we actively fight temptations and do our best not to give in to the lies of the devil?  Does our glory come from God, or do we seek to glorify ourselves with our own greatness, that does not even come close to shining as brightly as the glory that God desires for us?  How do we fill that thirst that we have for God?  Are we active in cooperating with Christ to tear down the kingdom of the prince of this world and build up the Kingdom of God?  Do we ourselves recognize the ways we want to close our eyes to God’s goodness, and help to open others’ eyes to the truth of the Gospel?  Do we feed on the Living Bread come down from heaven, or do we try to fill our stomachs with food that fails to satisfy and is never enough?  Are we willing to let Christ raise us to new life, or do we treat Him as just another moral teacher, a philosopher, who had some good teachings, but is like all other teachers and philosophers who came before Him?
    Our reading of the Gospels and our participation in this Mass is not simply about gathering facts and putting time in with God.  When we read the Sacred Scriptures, guided by the teachings of the Church, God wants us to understand how we are to find our happiness by putting the old Adam, the one who chose disobedience to God, to death, and rising to life with the new Adam, Christ, who was obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross.  As we worship God in the Mass, God does not only want our praise from our lips.  He gives us the Eucharist, the miraculous Bread from heaven, so that our lives can be transformed and we can have a foretaste within us of the glory to be revealed at the end of time.  God wants us to utilize His presence within us to be more like Him, and to share that presence of Christ when we interact with others.  When family members, friends, co-workers, and others interact with us, do they sense Christ and see, even in small ways, His glory shining through us?  Are they greeted with the love that any person would desire to receive from God, and then invited to participate in the truth that is also God? 
    We are still early in Lent.  There is still time to get to know God better, and to open ourselves to the grace of God which makes deep changes possible in our lives so that we live a life like Christ’s.  Don’t only give up stuff this Lent.  Don’t only know the facts about the great gift of salvation God gave us in dying for us.  Allow what Christ did to become the pattern of your own life, and grow in your friendship with Him. 

Being Transfigured

  [The parts in Italics were used only at the Extraordinary Form Mass]

Second Sunday of/in Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. When I talk about going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I talk about how visiting the Holy Land makes it so that you never read the Gospel the same way, because you see in your mind the places where these things happened.  This is certainly true for the Transfiguration.  I remember the first time I went to the Holy Land, as a seminarian.  We stayed with the Franciscan friars at the top of Mt. Tabor.  To get up there, there are shuttles you have to take for large groups; the big travel busses can’t handle the snake-back roads.  While waiting for the shuttle, I decided I was going to climb up the mountain, and hopefully save some time.  So, with my Birkenstock sandals on, on a warm, May day, I started walking up the side of Mt. Tabor.  It was not as easy as I thought, with all the thorns and bushes.  Sometimes the stones were a little loose, and I lost my footing.  But I made it to the top, quite sweaty and hot, probably a little dehydrated, but proud at my accomplishment.

    I had another experience at Mt. Tabor, as I went inside the church.  There is a beautiful mosaic of the transfiguration in the apse of the church, and as I was praying, the sun shone just perfectly so that it hit the image of Jesus, and illumined Him.  I remember thinking that this must have been something like the apostles saw when our Lord was transfigured.  Combining those two days, it’s even more amazing when Christ was transfigured, as He and the apostles would also have likely been hot and sweaty, and yet Christ’s clothes became as white as light.
    That’s all well and good to understand some very realistic background, but what, we may ask, does the Transfiguration have to do with us?  How does the Transfiguration change my life?  Well, as with so many aspects of our Lord’s life, what He showed us is what He desires to happen to us.  We are supposed to be transfigured as well.  We are supposed to go from earthly dirty, sweaty, and tired, to clean, bright, and glorified.
    That process started for us in baptism.  At our baptism, the voice of the Father may not have been heard, but He said that we are His beloved.  We became configured to Christ for the first time (but hopefully, not the last!).  And from that moment on, we were destined for glory, the glory that Christ shone forth as a foretaste at the Transfiguration.  We call this divinization, or deification.
    God wants us to be like Him.  We cannot be the same nature of God (as we are limited and He is infinite), but He wants us to be transformed so that we are images of Him.  This is the whole idea of the Christian life.  From baptism until death, we are called to become more and more like Christ, the new Adam, and less and less like the first Adam.  St. Paul will talk about this using the terms “old man” and “new man.”  
    How does this happen?  Some of it happens through the sacraments.  I already mentioned baptism, but the Sacrament of Penance helps us be more like God through having our fallen actions (sins) washed away by the Blood of Christ.  Confirmation empowers us to act like Christ in public.  The Eucharist is meant to transform us from the inside out, so that as we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we become more like Him in what we do because we have Him inside us.    Marriage helps us to live for the other, as Christ did for His Bride, the Church.  Holy Orders allows one to act in the name and person of Christ the Head.  Anointing of the Sick strengthens us in illness to trust in God, even in difficult circumstances.  So when we receive the sacraments, it’s not meant to be coming up to receive some thing, like a prize for the just, but is meant to be a way of receiving God so that we can become more like God.  Which is why those in mortal sin have to go to confession first, because, among other reasons, you cannot become like God if you have separated yourself from Him.  Each time we receive sacramental grace, God wants us to utilize that grace to act more like Him in daily life.  
    Also, askesis, asceticism, is meant to help us be more like God.  We say no to things that we don’t need to rely more on the One whom we really need: God.  Especially in Lent, it can be easy to see penitential practices we do as something that we’re required to do, but only extrinsic practices.  Instead, in the Catholic spiritual tradition, our penitential practices are the practical ways that we say no to our fallen nature, and yes to Christ’s divine nature.  Do we see our Lenten penances that way?  Did we choose penances that will help us transform into the people God wants us to be, people more like Himself?  Or is it just “I gave up chocolate or beer for Lent because I would like to lose weight, but I’m going to go right back to it, and maybe even more, once Easter comes.”  It is so easy to pick a penance, and not get to the deeper reality of that penance, or what the penance is supposed to do.  
    Daily prayer is also a great means of divinization or deification.  Our Lord was always in contact with His heavenly Father, and would take specific time away from His preaching and miracles to be alone in prayer.  Is prayer just something that we check off to get it done for the day?  Or do we see it as our privileged time of speaking to and listening to the Father, so that He can change us to be more like Christ?      [Lastly, St. Paul in today’s epistle talks about how even the gift of our sexuality is meant to be transfigured by Christ.  Specifically, he talks about how to find a spouse in a Christian manner, not a pagan manner.  The Christian seeks someone whom they can help go to heaven, not just someone who looks good and satisfies bodily desires and lust.  In Christian marriage, personal happiness is not the goal; the holiness and happiness of the other is the goal.  Again, this is different from a pagan or secular point of view, which views the other as a means to the end of personal pleasure.  The way that we utilize our God-given gift of sexuality changes because of our relationship with Christ, whether we are single, married, in consecrated life, or ordained.  God wants to divinize all of us, not just parts of us.]
    Life is tiring, sweaty, and sometimes a hot mess.  We may always feel like we’re climbing, but never reaching the top of the mountain.  But if we allow God’s grace to be active in us; if we are open to the sacramental graces that we receive on such a regular basis; if we do penances that help us die to our old, fallen self; if we take time to really speak our heart to God and listen for what His heart says to us, then we will arrive at the top of the mountain, and find that God has transfigured us as well, to be a reflection of the glory of His Son, [who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is Lord, for ever and ever.  Amen.] 

Transformation through Trial

 Second Sunday of Lent
    In many a great story of literature, we find a hero who has to undergo a great trial, or many great trials.  After going through the trial(s), the hero is changed, for the better; transformed, we might even say.  This is true of ancient literature, like “The Odyssey,” where Odysseus, on his way home from war, has to conquer many trials on various islands as his ship is tossed about the seas.  This is true of classical literature like “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, where Ebenezer Scrooge has to grapple with his past, his present, and even a possible future in order to be changed from a miser to philanthropist.  This is true in the great Catholic trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien where Frodo is put through many trials trying to destroy the Ring of Power in the fires of Mount Doom.  This is even true in J. K. Rowling’s novels about Harry Potter, who discovers who he is and how to stop the evil wizard Voldemort through many tribulations.  
  

 That is true also for Abraham in today’s first reading.  After being promised a son to inherit everything; after his wife, Sarah, getting impatient with God’s plan and telling Abraham to conceive a child with her slave, Hagar; after finally having that son through Sarah, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son (at least of the promise), the son whom he loves.  Abraham’s willingness to abandon himself to God’s plan, however mysterious, is his great trial, for which God greatly rewards Abraham.
    As for the greatest story ever told, the story of Jesus, He doesn’t have to do anything to be great; He is great because He is God.  And yet, Jesus, too, in humility, undergoes a great trial in His Passion and Death, in order to be transformed, to be raised from the dead and receive a glorified body.  And in today’s Gospel, we hear about a foretaste of that glorified body as Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John.  It is a rest before the great struggle begins, and the apostles will need that reminder as they go through an unexpected journey of their own with their Master.
    What about our story?  I dare say that everyone over the past year has had trials.  And many people had trials before COVID.  And we will all have trials after we’ve gotten a handle on this pandemic.  How do we view those struggles in the light of faith?  Do we view those struggles in the light of faith, or are we fatalists, just letting life happen to us?  
    God does not call us to be fatalists, as if suffering is beyond the control of God and so we have no one to turn to during our tribulations.  God calls us to be sons and daughters in His Son, who gives us everything that we need, including allowing us to undergo trials to help us to grow.  
    There is, I would also dare say, a part of us that cringes from the trials and tests.  We would rather have the Resurrection without the crucifixion.  We would rather have abs of steel without going to the gym and eating well.  We would rather have infused knowledge than going to school for so many years.  But that’s not the way the world works.  In God’s mysterious plan, somehow the struggle is good for us, and builds us in ways that cheap grace never could.  There is no such thing as cheap grace; it is never earned (because grace is a gift), but it’s also not encountered passively; it always requires some death to self, which is a struggle.  
    And the attitude to have through it all is the attitude of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jesus: God will provide.  We can imagine how much the thought of sacrificing his son tore up Abraham.  We can imagine how confused and perhaps even scared Isaac was.  And in a few weeks we’ll hear the reaction of Jesus to His known, impending suffering and Death as He asks His loving Father for another way, if it is possible.  But, and these words are key, Jesus says, “Not my will, but yours be done.”  
    The trials and tribulations of life, the sufferings we encounter, especially if they are not of our own making, are the ways that we pass through death to life.  Lent is a long time of truly entering in, as we are called to do year round, to the Paschal Mystery–to the Passion and Death of Jesus–so that we are share in the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.  And if we go through whatever struggles we have with God, they do strengthen us, they transform us, they even transfigure us to be more like Jesus in glory.  
    We have a choice: do we want to get to that glory that Jesus showed His apostles on Mt. Tabor?  If so, there’s only one way to get there: through the cross; through suffering and death to our own wills and to our own sinfulness.  St. Rose of Lima put it this way: “Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”  The ladder may be difficult to climb, but the reward at the top is joy beyond imagining!  In the story of your life, follow the path of so many literary heroes: go through trials so that you can be transformed!

Our Time to Shine

Second Sunday of Lent

The most recent Marvel movie that debuted is “Captain Marvel.”  The previews didn’t really excite me, but on a Sunday afternoon I had some free time and decided to catch the movie.  I have to say, I was really impressed with the movie, both as something enjoyable, and as a good part of the Marvel universe, especially with the upcoming late-April release of the latest Avengers film.

I don’t want to give away the movie, but like many of the first movies of a superhero (or in this case, superheroine) it explains Carol Danvers’ history and identity, as well as her becoming who she truly is meant to be.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows us a glimpse of what we’re supposed to be.  In the midst of the impending Passion of our Lord (in the Gospel according to Luke, the Transfiguration happens after the first prediction of Jesus’ Passion, and right before Jesus sets out for Jerusalem to undergo His Passion), Jesus gives Peter, James, and John a glimpse of what will happen after Jesus’ Passion and Death.  The Gospel describes Jesus as with “dazzling white” clothing and His face changed in appearance.  We often depict Jesus as glowing in His Transfiguration.  But what it comes down to is that Jesus shows His special apostles a prefigurement of His glorified body, and Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah about “his exodus,” Jesus leading His people from slavery to freedom.

We were created for that glory that Jesus shows us in the Transfiguration.  We were created to communion with the saints in heaven as we make our way on our pilgrimage on earth.  We were made for heaven; that is the goal of every human life.

When we depict saints artistically or for sacred worship, we do so with a glorified body, and with a halo.  Good liturgical depictions of the saints may include the instruments of their life or even their death, but it does so in a way that shows that they are at peace.  We also try to make it look like the eternal light of heaven, that place where there is no night because the Lamb is the light and He is never hidden.  If you look at our icons, we have gold leaf for their halos as a way of reflecting and showing off the light.  And their faces are definitely peaceful, not affected by the passions or by even the external events of the world, but simply living the peace of Christ.

But that reality is not only for those in heaven.  If we are living the life of Christ, if we are putting on Christ and living as He desires, then we, too, can shine here on earth.  About certain holy men and women on earth, some have even mentioned that they seemed to shine.  Moses’ face shone after every encounter with God, as we read in the Old Testament.  

And if we shine more and more as we live the heavenly life, then we become more dull the more we immerse ourselves in our earthly life.  St. Paul speaks about that in our second reading.  He talks about those whose “end is destruction.  Their god is their stomach; their glory is in their ‘shame.’  Their minds are occupied with earthly things.”  The more that we focus, instead, on the heavenly life, the more Jesus “will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.”  The more that we focus on our earthly life, the more we resist that transformation that Jesus shows us in the Transfiguration.

Now, you might be thinking that you have to focus on our earthly life because you live an earthly life.  You, like I, have to pay bills, buy food, travel back and forth, pay mortgages or rent, etc.  But that’s not what I mean by the earthly life.  Earthly life is when we focus on our fallen and base desires.  When we are lustful; when we are greedy; when we make money or power or fame a god; when we lie; when we gossip.  When we do those things, we say no to the divine light that wants to change us, wants to transfigure us.  When we focus on prayer, on generosity, on helping our neighbors, on the common good, even while we are working or vacationing, then we allow that light to penetrate into the very fabric of our life and make us shine with the light of the eternal sun that never sets in heaven.  When we live the heavenly life, we can truly say that the “Lord is my light.”  

I don’t know about you, but I feel like our world is darker now than it was even not that long ago when I was growing up.  And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since that time, people’s participation in the faith has decreased greatly.  Our world is darker because it is not illuminated by as many men and women striving for holiness, striving to let the light of the Lord shine through them.  And even some of those who do attend Mass do not have their hearts set on the Lord, but are living a double life where greed and power and lust are the happy focus of their life for six and a half days of the week, and the Lord is the focus for one hour on Sunday.  The light will not shine through those people, either.   Instead, by the grace of God, we need to allow God to change us, to forgive us through the Sacrament of Penance when we fall, and to transfigure us with His light.  

Our identity is not in our base desires.  Perhaps you’re still discovering the “superhero” that God is calling you to be.  Be that superhero of the faith.  Be that saint, even in your daily life.  Let God transfigure you to let His light shine through you.

Transfiguring Society

Second Sunday of Lent

In the afternoon of Ash Wednesday the nation was alerted to what became the most-deadly school shooting in US history in Parkland, Florida.  There were so many tragic pictures and videos, many of them the result of almost everyone these days having a phone or tablet that can take pictures.  Last weekend we prayed for both the survivors and those who were murdered at our weekend Masses, and we certainly need to keep that entire community in our thoughts and prayers.

In the hours and the days after the shooting, there were many suggestions on how to stop such a tragedy from happening in the future.  Different suggestions included more gun control legislation and more help for the mentally ill, among others.  I’m not here to endorse or reject any suggestion that was offered on news sites and television programs.  But as we celebrate today the second Sunday of Lent, we are given a few reminders from God that are very poignant given what has happened in our country in the past couple of weeks.

In our first reading, we heard from Genesis about the well-known almost-sacrifice of Isaac.  While child sacrifice sounds so foreign to us, it was not so foreign to Abraham, as it was practiced in many of the local, near-Eastern religions that surrounded Abraham in the land of Canaan.  Abraham’s faith is tested by God, to see if Abraham is willing to give his most precious treasure up for God.  But before the sacrifice, God stays Abraham’s hand, and provides a sacrifice in Isaac’s place.  In God’s stopping Abraham, we see that God never wants any of His children to sacrifice their own children.  Child sacrifice is condemned (as God will condemn it again and again when the Israelites re-settle in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land), but it also looks forward to when God will allow what He would not require of Abraham, the death of His Son, His “only one,” whom God loved above all.  St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that God did not spare His own Son so that we could be raised from the dead and have our sins forgiven.

From the Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

In our Gospel, though, Jesus is not dying, but being transfigured, being transformed so that His body takes on the quality of a resurrected, not a crucified, body.  “His clothes became dazzling white,” and the prophets Elijah and Moses stood next to Jesus.  And the voice of the Father instructed Peter, James, and John, “‘This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.’”  And in the transfiguration, we find the key to putting an end to the horrible destruction of life that so plagues our society.

So many of the suggestions to put an end to school shootings, no matter how good they are, treat only the symptoms, and not the disease that has infected the body of society.  The key to ending such horrors is to be transfigured by Christ.  We, individually, and, as more and more individuals are, collectively, have to be transformed by Christ.  Without this transformation, we will sadly see our past national carnage repeated again and again.

How can we be transfigured?  By being open to the work of the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus.  That’s what the Sacraments are meant to do.  That’s what going to Mass is meant to do.  God wants to change us to be more like Jesus, and we need to be changed by God in order to find happiness and peace and wholeness, and therefore holiness.  Being transfigured by God is the medicine that wipes out the virus, rather than simply treating the symptoms.  

But to be transfigured a certain openness is required on our part.  God will not transform us without our permission.  St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the saints on our icons, said exactly that in Sermon 169: “God who created you without you, will not save you without you.”  If we come to Mass simply to put a butt in a pew, without any desire to hear God’s Word, to be formed and change our lives, no matter how long it may take us, then we will not be transfigured.  If we receive the Eucharist simply as something we were told to do since second grade, without first discerning if we should receive the Eucharist, then, as St. Paul says, we may be eating and drinking condemnation, not transformation, upon ourselves.  We should want to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ each Mass, because that very food transforms us, as St. Augustine also says in Sermon 227, “If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive.”   But if we have committed a grave sin and have not gone to confession; if our marriage is not faithful to the teachings of Christ; if we’re chewing gum, reading the bulletin, checking email, or playing games during Mass, then we will not be transformed.  

And if we do not take the graces that we receive in the sacraments, especially baptism, penance, the Eucharist, and holy matrimony, and live them in our day-to-day lives, in the choices we make in our family life, in our jobs, in our driving, in as many aspects of life that we can think of, then we will continue to see horrendous images continue to plague us.  

How do we stop Parkland from happening again?  Formed by God, filled with His grace through the Sacraments, love your spouse more than yourself; love your children enough to be their parent, not their friend, and say no to them and love them even more when they want something destructive; reach out to the people who have just lost a loved one and remind them how much you and God care for them; live and model a life that is based on the Word of God, not the changing ideas and trends of a culture that is based solely on pleasure and opinion.  In short: be transfigured.

Are We There Yet?

Second Sunday of Lent

“Are we there yet?”  This common cry from someone on a long journey is as common as it is annoying.  But it’s also understandable, especially if the long journey is towards a vacation or a nice destination.  Often times we like to skip the travel part, and just arrive at the destination.  The Star Trek idea of using a transporter has for a long time seemed to me an ideal way to travel, in as much as it requires very little time to get from point A to point B.

It can be difficult when we’re not at the destination.  But think about Abram in our first reading.  This is really the beginning of the story of Abram, who would be renamed Abraham.  God calls Abram to leave Haran, where Abram’s father, Terah, had taken him.  Terah had been called to go to the land of Canaan, but something happened and Terah never made it to his destination.  So God calls Abram to go to Canaan.  One website said that the distance between Haran and Canaan was around 500 miles.  To put that in context, 500 miles south of us is the city of Nashville, Tennessee.  And Abram was 75 years old when he started that journey.  Abram did make it, and traveled around Canaan, also going to Egypt, and always seeming to struggle a little.  But he never saw the fulfillment of God’s promise that God would make of Abram a great nation.  In fact, Abram had only 2 sons, and only one of them, Isaac, was actually the son of the promise to be a great nation.  

Jesus, for His part, also knew that the pilgrimage His apostles would be on would be difficult.  He had told them that He would have to suffer and die, but assured them of the Resurrection.  But still, they didn’t really understand.  In their mind, the Messiah was not supposed to bring sorrow and die, but to bring a new Davidic kingdom, with nothing but good times for the Chosen People.  

So, to give them something to hold on to in the midst of their struggles, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on Mt. Tabor, which, from personal experience I can say is no easy hike, and there He is transfigured before them.  Jesus gives them a taste of what the Resurrection will be like so that, as they’re struggling with Jesus’ suffering and death, they will be able to hold on to a little piece of heaven.  Of course, the disciples like this heavenly vision, and would rather not leave, especially Peter.  He basically is saying today, “I’m happy here; let’s not bother with the rest of your mission.  This is good enough.”  But Jesus takes them back down the mountain, and continues His journey, His pilgrimage to Calvary and the cross.

In our own faith life, we may ask from time to time, though maybe not in these words, “Are we there yet?”  We want to be at our destination: heaven.  And that’s good.  But to get there, we have to press on.  We cannot, like Terah, Abram’s father, stop and settle on the way, lest we give up and not reach our destination, the true Promised Land.  In the midst of our sufferings and trials, we want to be done with it all and be in a place where there is no more suffering, no more confusion, no more “not yet.”  That takes courage and perseverance to press on, even in the face of difficulties, when we know that God is calling us to keep going.

Some of you, maybe many of you, feel like this parish is at least in a time of suffering and pain.  God invited you to a new pilgrimage, not so much by you moving, but by me moving here, which is a change from my venerable predecessor.  We might say that we, like Abram, have left Haran, but we haven’t made it to the Promised Land yet, and we’re wondering when, or even if, we will get there.  In many ways I feel your pain and insecurity.  We look at the bulletin and see how far off we are in Sunday/Holyday collections and wonder how we can make it (but don’t worry; I’m cutting back on expenses as much as possible).  Fr. Anthony is different than Fr. Robert, and different is sometimes scary.  Some of our friends have left the parish to go to other parishes.  These things are on my mind and heart as well.  But, I am personally comforted by the words of Jesus we heard two weeks ago, when He told us not to worry and not to be anxious, because God cares for us.  That is what helps to limit the sleepless nights that I sometimes have.

I wish I could suddenly appear in a brilliant, shining light to give you a sense that everything is going to be alright.  There are definitely signs of hope: our school is strong and growing stronger, and it is my firm belief that by spending time with our youth and their families in their schools and in their activities, which I do my best to support and to which I frequently go, our parish will rebound and that through our youth and their families, especially through our wonderful schools, new families will be drawn into our parish.  I’m not saying that everything is going to be easy and painless from here on out.  I seem to find myself on the cross every week, and the words of Psalm 22, the words that Jesus said on the cross, come easily to my mind: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  But my hope and my consolation is the Resurrection, which was prefigured in the Transfiguration that we heard about today.  God is continuing to do great things in our parish, as he has since our foundation in 1955.  But we’re not in the Promised Land yet.  We, like Abram, must press on until we get there.

A Post-It Note from God

Second Sunday of Lent

In the front of my Breviary for Lent and Easter, the book of prayers that priests, deacons, and consecrated men and women are required to pray throughout the day, is a Post-It note, on which is written: Sirach 6:5-17.  The last part of this Scripture passage reads:

Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter;

whoever finds one finds a treasure.

Faithful friends are beyond price,

no amount can balance their worth.

Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;

those who fear God will find them.

Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable friendship,

for as they are, so will their neighbors be.

Fr. Kregg Hochhalter

This Post-It note was put there by one of my best friends from college seminary, Kregg Hochhalter, who is now a priest of the Diocese of Bismarck.  He stuck it there when I visited him once while he was still at St. John Vianney College Seminary.  Every Ash Wednesday I open it up, and I immediately think of him and our friendship.  Because we live so far apart, and because we have such busy lives, we rarely get to see each other.  In fact, after his ordination to the priesthood a few years back, I had not seen him until last summer, when his retreat happened to coincide with my summer studies at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois.  We didn’t have much time to catch up because of his retreat, but we spent the better part of an hour or two finding out how the other was doing.

Friendships like these are not too uncommon.  Many times friends from college move away from each other.  But if they are truly good friends, then all it takes is a meeting, even after a few years, and they can pick back up where they left off.  What is a blessing for me is that every year, I am reminded of our friendship, pray for Fr. Kregg, and try to send him a little note.  That yearly physical reminder I have in my book eases the year’s worth of not being able to see him.

Abraham (still called Abram at this point in the story) in our first reading is given a physical reminder of his covenant, his friendship, with God, who promises Abram descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky.  Abram would never see that promise fulfilled, nor the promise that his descendants would have the land.  But each time Abram looked into the night sky, and saw all the stars, he was reminded of what God had sworn on oath would happen.  In fact, that very bloody covenant ritual of cutting up animals and burning them, was the ancient way of saying, “May I be as these animals if I do not fulfill my part of the covenant.”  Each time Abram saw the stars, he knew that his descendants would one day be many, not just the child of his slave woman, Ishmael, or the child of his wife, Isaac.  

Jesus also gives Peter, James, and John, the Big Three of the apostolic college, a glimpse of something spectacular which is meant to hold them through the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.  Peter, James, and John see what a glorified body will look like, and they see Jesus surrounded by Moses, who represents the law, and Elijah, the greatest of all prophets.  They are given a glimpse of the resurrection.  They don’t really understand it, other than knowing it’s truly awesome.  

Mural of the Transfiguration at the top of Mt. Tabor

And it is even more awesome when one recognizes how much of a change it would have been.  I have been to Mount Tabor, to the place of the Transfiguration.  Today it has a switchback road with small busses to take people up.  But I climbed in my Birkenstock sandals to the top on one of my pilgrimages.  And even though I had showered that morning (as I do every morning), I was a mess by the time I made it to the top.  There were weeds, brambles, thorns, and the like, as well as loose rocks.  I doubt Jesus would have showered that morning; no doubt they were all a bit dirty from walking so much on the dirt roads, the sun beating down on them.  So when Jesus’ face “changed in a appearance and his clothing became dazzling white,” I’m sure Peter, James, and John knew this was something divine, a moment from God that was meant to strengthen their faith in who Jesus is.

God will often give us moments or Post-It notes that are meant to remind us of what is to come.  There is no better moment than the one we have here.  Jesus, under the appearance of bread and wine, is made present for us once again in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  This  place is not heaven, but is meant to be a reminder of us of heaven, where we will worship God and have communion–union with–God.  It is our weekly, or for some of you, daily reminder of God’s love and of what we have to look forward to if we follow Jesus.  May our Lenten practices help us to be aware of the many ways that God gives us a glimpse into what is to come, the bounty, the good things of the Lord that we hope to see in the land of the living.  

Where's the Animal?

Second Sunday of Lent

What is our reaction to the first reading today?  What thoughts cross our mind when we hear about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah?  Perhaps we weren’t really thinking about it too much because we’ve heard the story before.  We know that the angel will stay Abraham’s hand and the ram will take Isaac’s place.  But when we do that, we lose the force of this passage.  What if God asked you to sacrifice your child or one of your children?  What would your reaction be?  Would you start marching up the mountain?

This story should make us shudder.  Part of the story wasn’t so strange for the Jews and pagans hearing it, because the sacrifice of the son was part of a few pagan worship practices.  In fact, the Israelite and Judean kings will be blamed by God later for taking upon themselves the worship of Moloch; and the way Moloch was worshipped was by immolating, killing, the first son by throwing him into the fire.  But even while Abraham was probably not surprised that a god might ask for the sacrifice of the son, that didn’t make it any easier for Abraham.  He had sent away Ishamel, his son by the slave woman, Hagar.  He and Sarah were even more past the age for bearing children than when Isaac had been conceived probably around twelve years earlier.  And yet, God had promised that Abraham’s descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand by the sea.  You can imagine the question Abraham has going through his mind: ‘How could this be?  How will I have all these descendants if God is asking me to kill my son?’  

Maybe some of the children could relate to Isaac, too.  Hopefully not because they think their parents would kill them!  But imagine what must have been going through Isaac’s head: ‘Dad says we’re going to offer sacrifice to God today.  And here I am carrying the wood, and the knife, and everything to make the sacrifice, but where’s the animal that we’re going to sacrifice?  It’s just me and dad walking up the mountain!!’  With each step, maybe Isaac got a little more nervous about what was going on.  And Isaac is even forced to set up the wood for the sacrificial fire.  And Isaac even lays down, no doubt asked by his father to do so, as Abraham was an old man, and there was no way he could have caught up to Isaac if he decided to run away, or fight off Isaac if he decided to resist being sacrificed.  Hopefully we’re starting to feel the tension, like in a movie where the hero is about to die, but you’re not quite sure the hero is going to be able to escape and wondering how the plot can continue without the hero.

Even though this account that we hear today is a true account, it also foreshadows a future event to which St. Paul refers: the crucifixion of Jesus.  Isaac becomes a prefigurement of Jesus: he carries the wood for his own sacrifice; he willingly lays down upon the wood to be sacrificed.  But, instead of an angel appearing at the last minute to stop Abraham from killing his own son, God the Father allows Jesus to die.  The scourges fall on Jesus’ back; the nails pierce through Jesus’ hands and feet; the spear punctures Jesus’ side.  There is no ram to take Jesus’ place.  Jesus Himself, the only Son of God, the Beloved, dies, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.  The hero of the disciples dies, as an unexpected twist in the plot of their lives and in salvation history (at least from our point of view).  

With such drastic suffering that the disciples were going to experience in watching their master be arrested, scourged, and put to death by evil men, God did not want the disciples to be without hope.  And that’s where the Gospel comes in today.  God gives the disciples a preview of the end of the movie: the Resurrection and Ascension as Jesus is transfigured before their eyes.  Peter, James, and John get a preview of the heavenly life and what a glorified body will look like to help carry them through the dark days of the Passion of our Lord.  Of course, they don’t understand that it’s meant to carry them through.  Especially in the Gospel of Mark (by tradition Mark’s source for Jesus’ life was St. Peter) the disciples never seem to understand what’s going on, with a few brief exceptions.  But afterwards, they see how God was preparing them for suffering by seeing a taste of glory.

That preparation is important for us, too.  For many of us, there is suffering in our lives: unemployment; loved ones with diseases; dysfunctional families; a lack of friends.  God doesn’t say to us: deal with it!  He does, sometimes just in fleeting moments, give us a foretaste of the joy that awaits us in heaven.  Mass is supposed to be something of that, as we come together to worship God with precious metals and vestments that remind us of heaven, where we will see God face to face and be embraced by His love and by all those who have been faithful in following Christ.  God gives us the Eucharist to give us strength to make it through suffering, as food for our pilgrimage.  And He shares glory with us in so many other small ways, that we often don’t recognize them until later.  

The same could be said for Lent.  During Lent we focus on suffering: on Jesus’ suffering; on uniting our own suffering and penances to Jesus on the cross.  But it’s not meant to be all suffering.  Even this early, in the second week of Lent, God gives us a foretaste of the glory that comes after suffering through Him, with Him, and in Him.  Lent is not the end of the story.  Jesus’ death is not the end of the story.  God has prepared glory for us, just as He prepared glory for Jesus and raised Him from the dead.  May we recognize the foretastes of glory that God gives to us, so that the joy of Easter carries us through the Good Fridays of our lives.